Page 83 of What a Scot Wants
Imogen peered inside the parlor, where her father, mother, and Ronan stood in a tense, small circle before the hearth. None of them noticed her.
“Our daughter is a grown woman who has made her own choices. Do you think we have not noticed her reckless behavior toward Mr. Calder?” Lord Kincaid replied in a hushed tone. “It was yet another of Imogen’s acts that has rebounded on her with severe consequences. Only the poor man wished to make it right when he came to ask for her hand in marriage. He wished to do right by her.”
Imogen cringed that her parents were still shielding this monster, but in their defense, they didn’t know what he truly was.
“To solicit a man for a tryst, to cause such a scandal…” Lady Kincaid added, Imogen’s blood slowing in her veins when she recalled that Aisla had said the same.
Her heart breaking, Imogen finally stepped forward. “Is this what you believe? Is this what you think of me?”
Her mother saw her and instantly flushed. “Imogen. Your father and I, we don’t knowwhatto think. Your conduct over the last few weeks has been disturbing, first with the duke and then with Mr. Calder.”
“But now, with this scandal, we can’t help but see it as a last desperate effort to get the duke to cry off for whatever misguided reason you have in your head of being a spinster forever,” her father cut in. “To drag poor Silas into it, however, after he’d offered his own hand as an alternative, is too much, even for you.”
She couldn’t believe what they were saying. Silas Calder had so thoroughly enchanted her parents that they were blind to the truth.
“I didn’t drag that deceitful knave into anything.Heis the one who had me taken.Heis spreading these rumors, all of them!”
“Silas is one of us, Imogen, a friend to our family,” Lord Kincaid replied, looking utterly aghast. “He has been nothing but attentive and devoted to you.”
“Devoted? Oh, aye, indeed, he’s been that,” Ronan said as he took long strides toward her, his whole body rigid with leashed fury. “Imogen did no’ solicit Calder. The man is lying. She rejected him, and he’s taking out his revenge.”
All Ronan did was stand beside her, crossing his arms like a sentry, but it made her feel stronger. Still, it hurt that she needed his support to stand up to her own parents. It was exactly what she’d always feared—that they would not believe her.
“That is preposterous,” her father said, but there was a curl of doubt in his voice.
“Why is it so bloody impossible for ye to believe Calder is lying but so easy to believe yer own daughter is?” Ronan was livid, color rising in his cheeks. He shook his head. “This is why Imogen didnae tell ye to begin with. Because she kenned ye wouldnae believe her. I thought ye were a better man than this, Kincaid.”
“How dare you!” her father sputtered.
“I dare because, unlike ye, I believeher.”
Imogen looked between them, her tongue heavy and useless. She’d never had anyone stand up for her like this. It filled Imogen with wonder. But also with guilt; she’d never given her parents the chance to believe her. If she’d confided in them years ago, perhaps they would look upon her differently now. But from their point of view, all they were seeing was how she had acted with Silas in the last few weeks. She’d well and truly made her bed, and Silas was using that to his full advantage.
Lady Kincaid stepped between Ronan and Lord Kincaid. “What do you mean, Your Grace, about Imogen not telling usto begin with? You make it sound as if it’s been quite some time now.”
Ronan turned to Imogen. “Tell them,leannan. I ken ye’re afraid, but it’s time.” He took her hand, the warmth and encouragement leaching into her. “Ye’re no’ alone. No’ anymore.”
She held his stare, his blue eyes diving into hers, seeking the trust and fearlessness that Imogen knew he wanted so desperately in a wife. He believed he had found these things in her. And it was under his steady and generous stare that Imogen realized he had not.
But Ronan was right about one thing. It was time for her parents to know.
Silas had pushed her into a small, airless corner, and she could either crouch and huddle there, desperately trying to breathe for the rest of her life, or she could push back. Even if it meant exposing the truth to everyone, including Ronan.
Even if it meant losing him.
Imogen stepped out of his grip with an odd sense of calm descending over her. “Yes. I have to tell the truth. I never quite knew how tired running from it had made me, until right now.”
She turned to her parents, who were watching her with matched frowns of confusion. “I was fifteen when Silas Calder told me that he was in love with me and that he wanted us to be together.” The words came easier as soon as she started speaking.
“I was elated. Thrilled to have the secret admiration of a young, handsome, intelligent man, a man who clearly had your esteem and had been such a close friend for so many years. True to his word, he sought my hand after my first Season, when I was seventeen. But it was all a lie. The Silas Calder you know doesn’t exist. In that time, he got Belinda, my old governess, pregnant and dallied with other servants, all the while claiming to love only me. Hilda was the one who told me the truth—she’d seen his deception with her own eyes. Turns out Silas wanted more than just me…he wanted money and power. And after I learned about Belinda, he tried to take it the only way he could. By force.”
The air in the room disappeared. All sound did as well. Imogen could only hear her own rapid breaths…and, after a while, her mother’s quiet weeping.
“In the end, the man we all trusted didn’t give me a choice. Hetookit from me. In a men’s club, in an upper room, where he altered my drink with laudanum. I don’t recall anything from that evening, and I couldn’t fight him. I was utterly powerless until the owner of that club barged in and saved me. Silas vanished that very night…and I couldn’t bring myself to tell you what had really happened. How”—her voice broke on a ragged sob—“unforgivably stupid I’d been.”
She closed her brimming eyes, the first brick in her resolve crumbling. Her hands started to tremble. She could not look at Ronan, though she felt his burning, incisive, and utterly furious stare.
“Oh, my darling,oh,my darling,” her mother whimpered, and in the next moment, she felt her arms come around her in an embrace. She didn’t ask why Imogen had never told them. She didn’t fault her for keeping it secret. She only held her. And when Lady Kincaid finally stepped back, Imogen saw pain and regret etched in her teary eyes. Her mother believed her.
